September 26, 2016

Dear Next President,

Please look at the death of teens in our community. Victims of bullying who commit suicide, some who are scared of going to school because they’re been humiliated. Imagine if you see someone being bullied and you had a choice to stand up for them or walk away which seems like a hard choice, but hopefully people would make the right choice. Many teenagers commit suicide however; some people do chose to stand up for the victims and help them. The reasons bullies hurt other people are because they have problems at home, personality, stress, overconfidence, and insecurity. With the rise of bullying the past few years 4,400 teens have committed suicide, the families of this victims are been devastated by the lost of their kids. This issue must be addressed by the next four years so that the next generation of teens can live through life without been scared. Kids this days are scared to leave their house let's make that change and make school and our community a better place.

The rate of deaths have been raised by 20% in schools and only 6% of the people stand up for the victims. Bullying affects witnesses, victims and their families. Witnesses are more likely to use tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs, increase of mental health problems and miss or skip school. Students have a unique power to prevent bullying. More than half of bullying situations like about 57% stopped when peers intervene on behalf of the students being bullied. The victims and their family are the most affected because every time teens get bullied they suffer from depression and commit suicide. One out of every four students 22% report being bullied during school year and 64% don't report it. Students report being bullied because of their looks 55%, body shape 37%, and race 16%. In every suicide among teens there is at least 100 suicide attempts. About 14% of high school students have considered suicide and 7% have attempted it. victims of bullying are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims. At least 30% of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school everyday because of fear of bullying. Girls from 10 to 14 years old are at higher risk for suicide.

Students who experience bullying are at increased risk for poor school adjustments, sleep difficulties, anxiety and depression. Those who engage are at risk for academic problems, substance use, and violent behavior later in adolescence and adulthood. Some signs that victims can be suicidal are trouble sleeping or eating, talking about or showing an interest in death or dying, engaging in dangerous or harmful activities reckless behavior, substance abuse or self injury, giving away favorite possessions, saying or expressing they can’t handle things, making comments that things would be better without them. some school offers programs for students to help victims and also to teach kids bullying is wrong. In addition to stop there should be more programs where teens can communicate with each other and society. This is an important issue because lots of teens are committing suicide and been bullied for no apparent reason. In addition to stop bullying there should be more programs where teens can communicate with one another . I think this a issue that you should look at because lots of things are loosing their lives.

Sincerely,

Lisbeth Lesay